New Windsor-Essex mega-hospital to be built near airport

CBC News

A proposed mega-hospital for Windsor-Essex is going to be built near the Windsor airport.

David Musyj, the president of Windsor Regional Hospital, confirmed to CBC News that it will be "in the neighbourhood" of County Road 42 and the 9th Concession, near the airport.

Speaking to CBC Radio's Windsor Morning on Wednesday, Musyj would not reveal the exact location. But he said that will be made public tomorrow.

"This is so much more than just a new hospital site, this is truly reforming health care in Windsor-Essex for decades to come," he said.

"The new hospital site, although it's a big announcement, is just one piece of four to five announcements that are going to be made that particular day."

The provincial government has still not given final approval to the mega-hospital.

Musyj was asked what implications the location of the new hospital could have for the former Salvation Army Grace hospital site, which is currently vacant.

The hospital executive told Windsor Morning that the Grace site would be turned into an urgent-care centre, which would give patients a place to go if they are seeking treatment for an ailment that would see them discharged from an emergency room anyway.

"It's run by the acute-care hospital, it's staffed by emergency room physicians and emergency room nurses and it's been very successful in other jurisdictions that have it, to reduce hospital ER wait times, support the hospital ER and give an alternative to patients to attend, who have in their minds, clearly a serious injury, but not something like a stroke or a heart attack, but maybe they a broken arm, maybe they have a laceration, maybe they have some respiratory issues," said Musyj.

"It's being able to be seen, very quickly, very efficiently by an ER staff and go home."

Muysj said that establishing an urgent-care centre at the Grace site allows those services to be available to downtown residents and for it to be "up and running before or the day the new acute-care hospital opens."